Alpha and Omega
"Alpha and Omega" is the tenth and final episode of Season 1 of Dark. It was written by Jantje Friese and Ronny Schalk, and directed by Baran bo Odar. It premiered on December 1, 2017 along with he rest of the season. Synopsis Peter gets a shock. Jonas learns the truth about his family, but there are more surprises still to come. Helge makes a sacrifice. Plot A flashback to the night of Mikkel’s disappearance shows Peter Doppler at the truck stop, tempted to visit the transgender sex worker, but he resists and heads instead to the bunker, reciting the Serenity Prayer. He is shocked when there is a flash of light and a young boy’s body falls through the ceiling. After attempting CPR, Peter realizes the boy is dead and finds his school ID, identifying him as Mads Nielsen. He calls Tronte, who comes over and sobs in disbelief over his son’s body. Claudia then walks in, telling them they must hurry and move Mads’ body to where he will be found. November 12, 2019 Jonas Kahnwald stirs in his bed; he turns over to find Mikkel Nielsen staring back at him. It is, of course, another nightmare. Jonas awakens for real, but throws his medication in the trash instead of taking it. Martha apologizes to Bartosz for her kiss with Jonas, saying she does not recognize herself since Mikkel's disappearance. He comforts her with a hug, but is disturbed by the revelation. Charlotte visits the nursing home, from which the elderly Helge has again absconded. She asks if Ulrich has been by, and the staffer says no, except for the assault the previous Saturday, when Ulrich acted as if Helge was somehow involved in the disappearances of the boys. Helge, in fact, spent the night in the elevated hunter's blind on the edge of the forest. Jonas visits his grandmother, Ines and asks her directly what she knew about the boy from the future. She retrieves Michael's suicide note, startling Jonas, who had burned the version he had received from the Stranger. Ines says she thought the boy simply had an overactive imagination, and was having trouble recovering from a trauma, but later came to believe his story. This angers Jonas, who demands to know why she did not intervene to prevent Mikkel's disappearance in 2019, for now he had another grandmother, whose husband was sleeping with his mother and looking for his son, who was his father, and now he had kissed his aunt. Ines tells him she believes that no matter how crazy things are, everything happens for a reason. People should live in the here and now, because there is no telling what the future will bring. 1986 Mikkel performs his magic trick for Ines, but says what he really wants to do is wake up. Ines likens his situation to Master Zhuang's paradox: a man dreamed he was a butterfly, but on waking, could not be sure whether he was a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. She asks Mikkel whether he is a man or a butterfly, and he says he might be both. 1953 Ulrich Nielsen is in the custody of the Winden Police, and discovering that his interrogator is his teenage self's nemesis, Egon Tiedemann, quotes "My only aim is to take many lives, the more, the better I feel." Egon suspects he is a satanist. Ulrich says Helge Doppler is not dead, because the two other boys whose bodies were found are still dead, but these sound like the ravings of a lunatic. As he is hauled away he mocks Egon, asking whether his wife has left him yet. 2019 Bartosz confronts Jonas outside the school, asking why he was not available Thursday. Jonas gives a non-answer, and Bartosz tells him that Martha told him everything. He calls Jonas a liar and just like his father, at which Jonas lunges at him, and they wrestle on the ground in a pouring rain until Martha emerges from the building. Jonas turns and leaves, and Bartosz shouts for him never to show his face again. 1986 The Stranger returns to the clockmaker's shop to see if H.G. Tannhaus has repaired his apparatus; Tannhaus has not, but has a second one that he built years earlier from plans. He retrieves the phone that Ulrich left behind in 1953 and demonstrates how it affects the device. He observes that just as the past influences the future, so the future influences the past, for had Jonas not brought him the second apparatus, he would not have understood how to complete the first one. He points out empty chambers, for example, whose purpose is uncertain; the Stranger retrieves a vial of Cesium-137 and inserts it. Tannhaus now understands how the device operates. It generates a Higgs field, which increases the mass of the cesium. An electromagnetic impulse causes it to implode into a black hole. The same thing must have happened during the incident at the power plant. The Stranger asks why Tannhaus decided to help him in the end, but Tannhaus begs off; who is to say a decision is the consequence of a series of causal links, or from some inner impulse? His entire life might well boil down to this one moment, and he may never understand the big picture. He asks what the future is like, and the Stranger says coldly that he hopes it will already be different. 2019 Charlotte calls Peter and confirms that his father, Helge, was kidnapped as a child in 1953. Peter wants to talk to her about Mads' reappearance, but she is excited about 1953 fitting into her theory about the 33-year cycle. She hangs up and drives off. 1986 Helge drives up to the shack to find an old man waiting for him there: his older self. The elder Helge tells him he must stop, that Noah is using him, and all his promises are lies. He begs him not to make the same mistakes he made, for Noah is not of God, but of the devil. The middle-aged Helge, distressed by this, runs back to his car and drives off. 2019 Hannah is alarmed to see Jonas's injuries. He does not say with whom he fought, but hugs her and tells her everything is okay. He then says he left something at school, and leaves the house. In the bunker, Peter tells Tronte that Charlotte is on the trail of Helge, the bunker, and the events of '53. Tronte says in a few hours everything will be over, as the older Claudia has told him, as is written in her triquetra notebook: Mads will live. Peter is skeptical, noting that half the pages of the notebook have been torn out. 1986 The middle-aged Helge has driven to see Noah at the church, asking why, if there is no God, that people pretend He exists; Noah says people prefer any lie to the pain. He recalls that back when he was a boy, a stranger visited, with sadness in his eyes. He took the room next to his and would sometimes babble in his sleep, until one night he said clearly, "Nothing is in vain." It was not until years later that he understood this to mean that pain in life is what makes us what we are. He tells Helge that his pain has made him who he is, but no longer has power over him. Helge, thus reassured, asks who is next, and Noah replies, Jonas Kahnwald. Selma Ahrens, Mikkel's caseworker, arrives at the hospital to take him to a children's group home. Ines takes her aside and says she wants to adopt him and take provisional custody of him. Selma patiently explains that the process is complicated, but Ines pleads with her, saying she is the only one who Mikkel allows to get close to him, and that she has grown fond of him. Alone in the forest, the teenage Charlotte Doppler is recording and sketching dead birds in her notebook when she is surprised by Jonas, who asks her what year it is. She asks what he is doing, and he replies that he is bringing someone back from the dead. She asks if he can bring the dead birds back to life, but he says it is too late. She objects that they would be alive when younger, and he retorts that it does not change the fact that they will die. 2019 The adult Charlotte reviews microfilm of 1953 newspaper articles about the discovery of the dead boys and of the disappearance of Helge. She then happens upon an article about the investigation which features a police photo of none other than Ulrich, with the headline, "Is This Man a Child Murderer?" 1953 Daniel Kahnwald, Egon, and two other policemen enter the cell where Ulrich is being held, demanding to know Helge's whereabouts. Ulrich refuses to say, and they begin beating him with batons. 1986 Jonas enters the darkened hospital after hours and heads to Mikkel's room, only to find him asleep and an unfamiliar man—Noah—reading beside him. Helge appears behind Jonas and knocks him out with a drugged rag. When Jonas awakens, he is locked inside the 1986 bunker. The Stranger comes to the door and tells him that Noah is the one who has taken him there, and that the chair is a prototype time machine, for which he is a guinea pig. The time travel passage in the cave runs directly below the bunker, but its energy must be augmented. Jonas begs the stranger to release him, but the stranger replies that this is the only way to fix things. He reveals that he himself is also Jonas Kahnwald, but from 33 years in the future. He remembers having the conversation from the other side, and says we are not free, but doomed to repeat the cycle again and again. He cannot free the younger Jonas, because then he would not become who he is now, in a position to destroy the time passage once and for all. He departs, leaving the teenage Jonas shouting. Helge drives home in the rain after kidnapping Jonas, but when he passes through the familiar intersection near the power plant, his car is T-boned by another—driven by his elderly self, trying to prevent the middle-aged Helge from continuing on. 2019 As Charlotte reads a newspaper article about the accident, Peter sends her an urgent text asking her to come down to the bunker. The black car is parked on the railroad bridge. Inside, Noah tells a frightened Bartosz that everything is about to begin again. The older Jonas will attempt to destroy the wormhole, but doesn't realize that in the process, he will be the one to trigger its existence in the first place. Claudia has lied to him; he is another pawn, like Mikkel, Jonas, and the others, in the war to control time travel. He tells Bartosz that even though they do dark things, they represent the side of light, for no victory is won without sacrifice. Claudia, on the other hand, represents the shadow, and Jonas is her puppet. He hands Bartosz his triquetra notebook and speaks of freeing humanity from its immaturity and pain. 1986 The older Jonas has made his way to the passage deep inside the Winden Caves, bringing his orb light and apparatus with him. He activates the device using Ulrich's old phone, and as gears click and whir, a tiny black hole begins to form about it. A montage of scenes shows Ines bringing Mikkel home, Charlotte descending into the bunker, and Katharina trying to reach Ulrich on the phone. In 1953, 1986, and 2019, lights flicker across town. Regina and Aleksander witness a massive sphere forming over the plant. The earth shakes, and in the bunker, a portal opens up between 1953 and 1986. The young Helge Doppler and the teenage Jonas Kahnwald can see each other through it, and they move towards each other. When they touch fingers, Helge is transported to 1986, and the portal is closed. Jonas, meanwhile, wakes up in a far less colorful bunker, where weapons and gas masks are stacked on the shelves, and the string wall is laid out with photographs of everyone from the four families. He finds a photo of himself, connected by a string to a photo of his older self. He runs out of the bunker, but the landscape has changed. Walking out the road, he has arrived in a post-apocalyptic world, with burned out cars and warning signs in multiple languages. A truck pulls up full of armed individuals who pull their guns on Jonas. He begs to know what year it is, while a futuristic aircraft passes slowly overhead. A teenage girl tells him, “Welcome to the future,” then knocks him out with the butt of her rifle. Quotes * Tannhaus: That one's yours, and this one's mine. I built it many years ago. It's the same device, but in a different condition, you see. It's as if one could look at the beginning and end of something at the same time. * Tannhaus: It's not just the past that influences the future. The future also influences the past. You see, if you hadn't shown me what the device looks like in the future, I wouldn't have been able to build it. A paradox. * The Stranger: Why did you decide to help me after all? Tannhaus: Why? That's a big word. Why do we decide for one thing and against another? But does it matter whether the decision is based upon the consequence of a series of causal links? Or whether it stems from an undefined feeling inside me? That perhaps everything in my life boils down to this one moment? That I'm part of a puzzle, one that I can neither understand nor influence? Will you tell me what the future's like? The Stranger: I'm hoping that by tomorrow, it'll already be different from today. * Helge: But if there is no God, then why do we believe in a lie? Noah: Because we prefer any lie to the pain. Years ago, I was still a little boy, a stranger came to us. He looked as if he'd been in the war. Didn't talk much. There was this sadness in his eyes, the kind you sometimes see in those who want to die, but life won't let them. He took a room in our house, the bedroom right next to mine. And sometimes I heard him talk in his sleep. Confused words. But one night, he was suddenly very clear. He stood in the hallway, his eyes wide open, and said "Nothing is in vain. Not a single breath, not a single step, not a single word. Not pain. An eternal miracle of the One." I didn't understand any of his words. Only years later, when I felt the pain, did I understand what he meant, that none of the horrible things that befall us should be in vain, that they make us what we are, that they give us our strength. Your pain made you who you are, Helge, but it no longer has power over you. * Jonas: What day is it today? Charlotte: The 12th. Jonas: What year? Charlotte: '86. Are you from here? Jonas: (shakes his head) Charlotte: What are you doing here? Jonas: Bringing someone back from the dead. Charlotte: How does that work? Jonas: It's very hard to explain. Charlotte: Can you bring these back? Jonas: No, you have to find them when they're younger. Charlotte: But then they're not dead yet. Jonas: That doesn't change the fact that they will die. Charlotte: You're crazy. Jonas: Maybe. * Jonas: Who's Noah? Where am I? What is this? The Stranger: This is a kind of prototype of a time machine. You're the guinea pig. The passage in the cave lies directly under this bunker. If opened, the energy flows through this room. But it needs to be increased. No DeLorean. No hissing or steam. The first time machine is a bunker with four walls. But it still doesn't quite work. * Jonas: Let me out of here! The Stranger: I can't. It's the only way for things to be normal again. Jonas: Who are you? The Stranger: You don't know? The letter. You burned it. And yet it still exists. You'll carry that letter for almost 33 years before you pass it on—to yourself. I am you. My name is Jonas Kahnwald. I sent the letter to you. Or should I say, to me. * The Stranger: I can't let you out because then you won't become what I am today; if I now change my past, I will change who I am right now, and then I won't be able to destroy the hole once and for all. Why did you kiss Martha? We're not free in what we do, because we're not free in what we want. - We can't overcome what's deep within us. * Noah: Everything is about to begin. The older Jonas will destroy the hole, but he doesn't realize that he will be the one to trigger its existence—a paradox. The cesium in his useless machine< won't destroy the hole forever—it's what creates it in the first place. He thinks he's the savior, but Claudia lied to him. Most people are nothing but pawns on a chessboard, led by an unknown hand. Their lives exist only to be sacrificed for a higher goal. Jonas, Mikkel, the children, they're nothing but unfortunate, yet necessary chess moves in an eternal war between good and evil. There are two groups out there fighting to control time travel. Light and shadow. We belong to the light. Don't forget that, even though some of what we do is of a dark nature. But no victory is ever won without sacrifice. As long as we're in this time loop, we who know have to make sure that every step will be repeated exactly as it was before, no matter how inhumane it seems to us, no matter what sacrifices it demands of us. But believe me, the others are the ones who are truly inhumane. They have lost all humanity. They belong to the shadow. Your grandmother, Claudia, belongs to the shadow. Never trust her, no matter what she says. Jonas trusted her before and he will trust her again. Jonas thinks he will change everything, but he's just her puppet. He doesn't deserve any better. Time is an infinite field. Millions and millions of interlocking wheels. We have to be patient to be victorious. But our time will come. We will free humanity, from its immaturity, from its pain. But you must be strong. Can you do that? Bartosz: Yes. Production Goofs * On November 12th after Jonas throws his medicine in the trash, he looks to his desk and sees the orb light, Geiger counter, and the suicide note. However, he previously burned the suicide note on November 9th. . Later when he speaks with Ines at her home, she gives him the suicide note and he says it's impossible because he burned it. Analysis * Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation. * Bartosz tells Jonas to never show his face again- which he does after getting sent to the future. Recurring themes * The image of Jonas and Helge reaching their fingers towards each other through the wormhole is reminiscent of God and Adam reaching out to touch in The Creation of Adam, a fresco painting by Michelangelo which illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives life to Adam, the first man. (Christianity) * The title Alpha and Omega comes from the phrase "I am the Alpha and Omega," an appellation of Jesus in the Book of Revelation. When it appears, it is clarified with the additional phrase, "the beginning and the end." (Christianity) Gallery 1x10 0000 TruckStop.jpg|The truck stop 1x10_0001_Trailer.jpg|Benni's trailer 1x10_0002_ShackNight.jpg|Coming to the shack 1x10_0003_PeterAnxious.jpg|Anxious 1x10_0004_Rift.jpg|A rift opens 1x10_0005_PeterShock.jpg|Peter in shock 1x10_0006_PeterBunkerCPR.jpg|Attempting CPR 1x10_0007_MadsBody.jpg|Mads Nielsen returns 1x10_0008_MadsID.jpg|Mads' ID 1x10_0009_CallingTronte.jpg|Calling Tronte 1x10_0010_PeterTronteBunker.jpg|Tronte arrives at the bunker 1x10_0011_MikkelDream.jpg|Mikkel returns in a dream 1x10_0012_Gear.jpg|Jonas's gear 1x10_0013_BartoszMartha.jpg|Bartosz and Martha 1x10_0014_BartoszMarthaHug.jpg|A distracted hug 1x10_0015_CharlotteNursingHome.jpg|Charlotte comes to the nursing home 1x10_0016_ElevatedBlind.jpg|The elevated hunter's blind 1x10_0017_HelgeAwakens.jpg|Helge awakens in the forest 1x10_0018_Ines.jpg|Ines meets with her grandson 1x10_0019_JonasAngry.jpg|Jonas is angry 1x10_0020_Mikkel1986.jpg|Mikkel at the hospital 1x10_0021_UlrichBooked.jpg|Ulrich gets his mugshot 1x10_0022_JonasBartoszFight.jpg|Jonas and Bartosz fight 1x10_0023_JonasLeaves.jpg|The last of Jonas 1x10_0024_Apparatuses.jpg|Two apparatuses 1x10_0025_PhoneInterference.jpg|The effects of a phone 1x10_0026_Fuel.jpg|Adding fuel 1x10_0027_Helge.jpg|Middle-aged Helge 1x10_0028_Helges.jpg|Helge-Helge encounter 1x10_0029_Helge.jpg|Elder Helge 1x10_0030_HannahBox.jpg|Hannah and her extortion box 1x10_0031_HannahJonasHug.jpg|Hannah and Jonas hug 1x10_0032_Hannah.jpg|Hannah in 2019 1x10_0033_NoahHelgeChurch.jpg|Noah and Helge outside the church DARK Still 110 - Noah and Helge outside church.jpg|Noah reassures Helge 1x10_0035_KatharinaMartha.jpg|Katharina and Martha 1x10_0036_EgonCellDoor.jpg|Egon peers into the cell 1x10_0038_SocialWorker.jpg|Social worker Selma Ahrens 1x10_0040_Birds.jpg|Birds on Charlotte's notebook 1x10_0041_BirdDrawing.jpg|Charlotte's sketches 1x10_0042_CharlotteForest.jpg|Charlotte in the forest Charlotte1986.jpg|After meeting Jonas 1x10_0044_UnidentifiedBoyCorpsesFound.jpg|Unidentified bodies found 1x10_0045_HelgeDopplerDisappears.jpg|Helge Doppler disappears 1x10_0046_IsThisManaChildMurderer.jpg|Is this man a murderer? 1x10_0047_Daniel.jpg|Daniel 1x10_0048_UlrichBeatdown.jpg|Ulrich gets a beatdown DARK Still 110 - Jonas in hospital.jpg|Jonas returns to the hospital DARK Still 110 - Noah and Mikkel in hospital.jpg|Noah and Mikkel 1x10_0049_NoahMikkelHospital.jpg|Noah and Mikkel 1x10_0050_JonasCaged.jpg|Jonas caged 1x10_0051_StrangerVisits.jpg|The Stranger comes to visit 1x10_0052_JonasBunker.jpg|Jonas, the chair, and the bunker 1x10_0053_JonasBunkerCloseup.jpg|Jonas in the bunker DARK Still 110 - Car crash.jpg|The car crash DARK Still 110 - Helge after car crash.jpg|Helge lives DARK Still 110 - Helge in crashed car.jpg|Helge dies 1x10_0055_HelgeDies.jpg|Helge after the accident 1x10_0056_SevereAccident.jpg|Article about the accident 1x10_0057_BlackCarBridge.jpg|Noah's car at the bridge 1x10_0058_Claudia.jpg|Claudia returns 1x10_0059_AccidentScene.jpg|Bird's eye view 1x10_0060_StrangerPortalOpen.jpg|Through the portal 1x10_0061_GretaBernd.jpg|Greta and Bernd 1x10_0062_DorisAgnesToast.jpg|Doris and Agnes toast 1x10_0064_JanaTronte.jpg|Jana and Tronte 1x10_0065_MagnusFranziska.jpg|Magnus and Franziska 1x10_0066_RaiderAd.jpg|A Raider bar ad 1x10_0067_ReginaAleksander.jpg|Regina and Aleksander 1x10_0068_WormholeWeather.jpg|Up in the sky 1x10_0069_ClaudiaGun.jpg|Claudia in the forest 1x10_0071_HelgeCrouched.jpg|Helge crouched in terror 1x10_0072_AcrossTime.jpg|Reaching across time 1x10_0073_JonasStringWall.jpg|The string wall 1x10_0074_PostApocalypse.jpg|After an apocalypse 1x10_0075_WelcometotheFuture.jpg|Welcome to the future References Category:Season 1 Category:Episodes de:Alpha und Omega es:Alfa y omega fr:Alpha et oméga